20/20

Revision process for "You Don't Even Speak Spanish!"

Sep 26, 2024

September 1st, sunset at Huntington Beach

You don’t even speak Spanish! will have a staged reading presented by Playwrights Arena on October 20th, 2024 as part of their New Pages Lab reading series!

The play is a Chicano farce that follows Jorge Ramirez, a first-generation Chicano college student, as he tries to find his voice amidst family expectations and societal pressures. When he falls for Citlalli in his Aztec dance class, his life takes a surprising turn.

Near the end of August, I met with Literary Manager Abe Zapata Jr. at the Tierra Mia Coffee shop near Cal State Los Angeles to talk about my play. Prior to that, Rosa Navarrete, who I met through the KCACTF Region 8 Festival, encouraged me to submit my script to them, and I got the email that they were interested in the play around the end of June.

So sitting at a wobbly table on the outside patio of Tierra Mia, sipping my small americano, I thought what more can I do with this play, it was a 2023 O'Neill National Playwright Conference semifinalist and a 2022 Latinx Theatre Commons Comedy Carnaval finalist. I listened to Abe’s feedback and notes and was inspired to go back through the script to make it as tight, funny, and dope as possible.

So I came up with this bright idea, that for the next twenty days, starting on September 1st I would revise You don’t even speak Spanish! for at least twenty minutes a day ending on September 20th, hence 20/20 revisions.1

9/1/24 - 10pm-ish

I was at the beach all day with my family for a swim team function. The whole day I couldn’t help but think about one of the first notes Abe gave me: “what would happen if we meet the family sooner?”. That note stuck out to me because during my MFA program in Stu Krieger’s T.V. Comedy class at UCR, I wrote a pilot episode of this play with an opening scene that involved watching home videos. I loved this frame/container/device and basically wrote this scene in my head before I fell asleep a couple of nights ago. So when I returned from the beach and bomb fire, I popped open my old ass lap top and created a new document and began to craft this new scene and create a new character GRANDPA V. Twenty minutes flew by.

9/2/24

Labor Day. I did a little drinking at a BBQ and used the holiday as an excuse not to write/revise/work.

9/3/24

Had an interview for a literary manager position, but didn’t do so well. I think I felt bad for myself and used that as an excuse not to write.

9/4/24

Had another quick interview with another L.A. theatre company. Used most of my brain power preparing for this, and used this as an excuse not to write.

9/5/24

Still no writing. At this point I started rationalizing that if I write for and hour then I could make up three twenty minute session.

9/6/24

Who writes on Fridays? Not this guy again. Drank a six pack and had self-aggrandized buzzed fantasies of writing for 8 hours and updating my LinkedIn profile.

9/7/24

It was a day like any other. I was doing house work and laundry and dishes. I jumped in the shower and noticed my right arm was feeling strange when I tried to reach around to wash the rest of my body. Then, I noticed my right arm was swelling up fast! I told my wife, I think I need to go to the hospital and we took off. They discovered I had a Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT/Blood Clot) I had to stay the night in the hospital. They put me on blood thinners and sadly, I didn’t get any writing done.

I was freaking out at first, but the next day I was ready to get back to work. My wife brought me my work, and I was enjoying the quiet time and even the football game.

9/8/24

No writing or revising again. I was released from the hospital that evening and I just wanted to be with the family.

9/9/24

I love Mondays. I was ready to get back into the script for reals this time, but a majority of the day was spent figuring out insurance stuff to get the $700 prescription I needed for free. By 3:30pm I started feeling light headed, and weak, and started freaking out because what if the blood clot moved to my heart or lungs, then I felt like I was going to faint. My wife took me to the hospital again. They did an EKG on me , X-rayed my chest, and I put me in a CT scan machine. Luckily, everything came back negative and I was released in a couple of hours. I think I had an anxiety attack or something, but again no writing.

9/10/24

I took it easy and tried to relax. No revising again, unfortunately.

9/11/24

I had an informational interview with the Artistic Coordinator at South Coast Repertory theatre, Rob Salas snd that was dope to speak with him about comedy, his career, and the L.A. Theatre Scene. Then I had a another interview with the Managing Director from the Actors Gang for an Audience Service Manager position. Still no writing.

9/12/24 - 8:00pm

I took my daughter to swim practice, and was starting to feel sorry for myself. I settled on just listening to KPFK’s Alan Watts and try to meditate and fall asleep. But for whatever reason I reached into my backpack and pulled out my laptop and saw I have 13% left on my battery. I got to work. I continued with this new opening scene from where I left off eleven days prior. I successfully introduced all the characters in the family and started to develop their dynamic a little bit more.

Session two 8:25pm
I was on a roll and still had time before my daughters practice ended, so the second 20 minute session I continued to work on developing a new character GRANDPA V. that will double with AGENT BLACKWATER. He is a nod to my great grandpa and hopefully better ties in the aspect of being recorded, as well as the connection to Dodger Stadium. I get him on stage and try to continue foreshadowing and thinking on the fly how the hell am I going to transition to the original opening scene of the Aztec fire dance in a UCLA dance studio 15 years in the future.

9/13/24 - 6:20am

I woke up early, went for a walk I think, and felt pretty good and excited to get back to writing and finishing this new opening scene. I got everyone on stage and even had them showing this all American family moment tableau, with high fives and home runs.

Session two 6:40am
I kept going and focused on transitioning out of this moment. I remembered what Dr. Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez mentioned to me about introducing this projection/image/video element earlier and with some historical context. So as this family holds this tableau, the lights begin to fade and an Aztec drum beat begins to fade in. A projection of what I’m calling an “L.A. Chicano Timeline” pops up. Images and videos from the Zoot Suit Riots of the 40s, the evictions of the Chavez Ravine in the 50s, the Delano Grape Strike of the 60s, the Chicano Moratorium of the 70s, the Dodgers of the 80s, the L.A. riots of the 90s, America's Funniest Home Videos of the 2000s and 9/11… Then my computer crashed.

9/14/24

No writing. I focused on recharging my laptop and getting it, and me, back up and running again.

9/15/24

I am feeling the pressure now. My goal was to have a complete revised draft by the 20th, and that means I am only five days away and technically only have 100 minutes of revision left to go.

Session one 6:30am
I deleted some stage direction from my original opening scene so that the new opening now blends in hopefully seamlessly. My intent was to do a quick pass of the script for little things and formatting issues, and make notes of major things that I might want to remove or enhance later, and I even created a word doc titled “Darling Killers”. I got to page eleven and then got stuck at a random piece of dialogue that the main character brings up for no reason other than as a plot point. I went for a walk.
Session two 7:30am
Back from my walk. I addressed this dialogue issue by using the logic of close association of the words “Great Grandpa” and “pictures” that leads the main character to bring up his own great grandpa and picture of his house at Dodger Stadium. I discovered I spelled Cesar Chavez wrong a couple of times, but then got distracted because I started looking up the youtube video for “Ain’t nobody got time for that” by Sweet Brown, and then added it into to script because I thought it would be funny. I also approximated that this play takes place in 2013 and this was peak 2013.
Session three 8:00am
My kids are still asleep so I kept going. I spent some time reviewing the notes Abe, the Literary Manager, gave me before I jumped into the next scene so I have an idea of what I’m looking for or trying to address in this revision. I discovered in scene two that I have a lot of explaining/definition chunky paragraph dialogue. I also realize the two characters in the scene are not really doing anything like in terms of action. I have this framework of a waltzing and dancing as these two characters enter, so I used that set up to have them dance a little longer while they also explain/define the surveillance terms they bring up. Then I got stuck because there was a music shift, and I had to make a choice.

Later that day I treated my self and went to go see some theatre on the westside. I ran into the literary manager Abe, and even Luis Alfaro. Saw a dope play by Zharia O’neal and was inspired by her tension building and how she dropped the audience right in the middle of the story and world.

9/16/24 - 7:20am

Okay so I read through the scene and think the change from a waltz type of music to a patriotic type of music will set the satirical tone and set up a framework for this farce. I tightened some holes in the dialogue to emphasize the comedic nature of this section and added an ORANGE FOG element too. Finished the scene and got to page 20. Was a little interrupted here and there because of all the morning school routine business.

9/17/24 - 7:05am

Slow morning, didn’t go for a walk. Sipped coffee and watched youtube for an hour or so. I think I needed to cut the next scene down. It’s nine pages, and if I can whittle it down to four that would be cool. Cut 10 lines of dialogue from the top, and tried to start in the middle more. Slashed another 10 lines of dialogue around trust and what is your favorite ice cream. They weren’t really doing anything to push the story forward. Fighting urges to not add dialogue.

9/18/24 - 6:16am

Jumped right in where I left off. Messing with this dance sequence and setting up this psychophysiological device that I’m using. So I only ended up cutting out one page out of the five I was trying to cut. But I think what I have in there is essential, funny, character driven, and moves the plot forward.

Session two 6:46am
I’m at the family scene page 29, and I forgot I introduced this family before, and now it colors the scene so much more, because it makes my brain work to remember that opening scene. I also realized with two days left of this revision process, that I’m essentially going through the script and filling plot holes, or trying to be one step ahead of the audience so they don’t get lost in thinking about something in the script.
For example, this play uses an “America's Funniest Home Videos” reference, and my thought process behind that was to use this iconic show as commentary on surveillance, and also to wonder what if America’s actions of war and imperialism were captured on video would we the audience, be laughing? However, the symbolism, metaphor, or whatever you want to call it gets lost because most of the audience either doesn’t know that show ever existed, or the ones who know about that show understand that it is irrelevant now with the advent of social media. I guess I am also commenting on the fact that for some families, watching this show was a past time, like it was an image of the American Dream or something: exploiting your family for monetary gain. Kinda like this play?
Session three 7:10am
I kept plowing through the family scene, rereading every line. Thinking about a full production, and also how working back of house for nearly a year now, has me thinking about lights, and sound, and rigging and sets. Also after hearing Tim Robbins from Shawshank Redemption and the Artistic Director of the Actors Gang refer to their theatre style as characters at emotional extremes, I felt satisfied with the pictures of the characters I’ve created. This play is inspired by Dario Fo’s political farce style and other chicano comedic traditions, and I don’t necessarily need to justify the way the characters act or behave because it’s not realism if that makes any sense.
Session four 1:20pm
I finished the first family scene, and dove right into the next section where the father character loses his job. I am curious to see what happens if I cut this section completely, but then it sets up a pivotal moment in the next family dinner scene which escalates the tension. I simply copied and pasted that section into my darling killer document, but even that hurt. I’m scared to pull the trigger. I’m going back and forth. I read on to see how it might affect or not affect the story. I ended up cuttting it. It had two Lazzi’s in there and a monologue, but let’s see what happens if it is not in there for this reading. It still hurt to cut that scene and I guess they don’t call it “killing your darlings” for nothing.
Session five 2:00pm
Another note Abe made about the script was that there was a lot of penis jokes. So I was glad to cut out a lot of dick pic talk, which was kinda unnecessary. I added some lines to break up a long paragraph that the main characters was using to explain about mass surveillance and got to the end of Act 1. Because this is a farce and right at the 90ish page sweet spot I know I have to get rid of the act break. But then I started getting worried that I am trimming too much and “developing the play to death”. I’ve been going hard all day I’m on page 58 and I’m going to take a little break.

9/19/24 - 7:45pm

I’m working out this act break right now, and the reason why I put it in was to give folks who work concession some extra time to make tips and get those hours. But in a farce I don’t think there should be intermissions. I got lost on Galen Hooks choreography and that shit is so dope when done right.

Session two 8:10pm
I played with bringing this villain character in a spotlight through the aisles of the house, and reused this orange smoke effect to help get my point across, and as a visual representation of the point I am trying to make about Agent Orange. I feel satisfied with this dance sequence thing. But I think will have to see it in action to decide if it works or not. I don’t know if a reading can do that.
Session three 8:30pm
Went straight into the next scene. A car scene. It’s about nine pages. And I feel like in general this is the second act and I was plowing through this shit, and covering a lot of story. I ain’t mad at this little car scene. It’s kinda cute and funny. Cleaned some stuff up and clarified some things. Took out a dance number. Got to page 66, thirty more to go.

9/20/24 - 8:00pm

Listening to the best youtube has to offer on hip hop violin. And I am all in. Earlier today I joined ATHE’s Latinx, Indigenous, and the Americas focus group theatre symposium. It was dope to see Esther Banegas Gatica, Melanie Queponds, Dr. Daphanie Sicre, and Dr. Guillermo Aviles-Rodriquez. They actually read an excerpt of my play during this symposium and it was crazy because I was just revising this section and I knew exactly where they were at, and I reread that scene again just for fun.

I totally was looking at the East Coast Time schedule so I missed a lot of the symposium but the two hours I was there was super inspiring.

This twenty minute session bleed through until 9:00pm. I had two tall cans and was just vibing; cleaning up dialogue, fixing spacing/formatting. Then as I got deeper into the play, and into my buzz, I realized I haven’t revisited this play in awhile. These characters mean a lot to me and I was just tripping out how long I’ve been working on this piece and how long I’ve been trying to make sense of this world. Got to page 73.

9/21 - 9/25/24

So after twenty days I didn’t reach my goal of writing/revising twenty minutes a day for twenty days nor did I finish my revisions by the September 20th self imposed deadline. But I think thats okay. I think setting the goal was what was most important. Because I set that goal, and because I had to answer to myself, and the fact that I also knew I wanted to document my revision process to share here with you all, I knew I had to be accountable no matter what. So thank you to my readers, subscribers, and friends.

I also think having that little health scare in the middle of this 20/20 bullshit was a reminder that I really do love this shit. That even if I’m in the hospital I want to/need to write.

I ended up finishing my revisions today 9/25/24 at 7:30am. But I struggled for whatever reason to get there. I think what You don’t even speak Spanish! is trying to say is that this system is fucked up: the system that denied Chicano’s and Spanish speakers their native language in schools, the system that allows this country to participate in imperialism around the world, and the system that encourages domestic surveillance programs and FBI terrorist sting operations. This system is all fucked up and backwards, and we as a society can do better and deserve better, and perhaps that process starts with the self, then the family, and finally with the community.

Thank you all again for your continued support and encouragement, and thank you as always for taking the time to read my words. I would love to know what your revision process looks like. Feel free to leave a comment.

Aaron Higareda's Playwriting Experiment

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